Can Very Old Grades Hurt Me?

I am 35 years old, and am in my second year of prereqs for optometry. My GPA so far is 3.76 overall and 3.76 for prereqs... About 17 years ago I was at the same school I am in now, in a music program. I basically goofed off for the whole year and got some pretty bad grades, even got an F in one class.

I thought it was history, but in the past week, the school started including all of these courses in my transcript draft. This has brought my overall institution gpa down to about a 2.5. Is this going to hurt my chances when it comes time to apply? Do you think it might be possible to get such old grades stricken from my record? If not, should I at least mention in my essay / cover letters when I apply why my instituion gpa is so low?

I guess I should go speak to an advisor tomorrow, but I just thought I'd see if anyone here has been in a similar situation?

I spoke with my school yesterday and unfortunately it looks like the grades stay on my transcript for life. My only hope is that school(s) that I apply to will realize it was 17 years ago and see the my recent grades are a completely different story.